The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.49

c15.s1.49

Now universalistic authority transcending local society—or any actual society for that matter—had always been there in specifically Indian form in the person of the renouncer, who stood outside society and therefore was the ideal arbiter and consensus-maker.⁵³ When the increased possibilities and resources in society tended to uncontrollable growth and pervasive conflict passed far beyond local society, India naturally had to fall back on the institution and transcendent values of renunciation for guidance. It is hardly surprising, then, that when developments had gained momentum in the interbellum period, the acknowledged leader should have been a Gandhi, who saw himself and was acknowledged as a classical exemplar of renunciation—however enigmatic and contradictory the Gandhi phenomenon may have appeared, first of all to his own compatriots.